Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(56)
Author: Kristen Ashley

Five months would not be enough; two weeks hadn’t done a thing in assuaging his lust for her. If anything, after two weeks, he wanted her more.

He didn’t question it and didn’t care to, all he knew was that if he wanted more, he’d get it.

And he wanted more.

He’d never met a woman like her, regardless of who she was and what she was. In reality, he knew there were few women who didn’t have deceitful, larcenous hearts so he might as well spend his time with one who was open about it.

Or at least open enough to ask for fifty thousand pounds.

Once.

Since then, she’d tried twice (after the second time he’d ordered her to stop doing it and, with her usual mutinous expression, she’d agreed) to pay the bill at a restaurant when he took her to dinner. She never hinted she wanted presents, nights out, to jet off on holiday or more money.

She also never asked about his work, his family, his life and did not share any information about herself.

She kept him at arm’s length with everything.

Except in bed.

There she was fiery and responsive and utterly magnificent.

He had lied to Sibyl only once, when he told her he didn’t remember anything about the episode in the chalet in her garden the night before. He did remember kissing her. Not the start but definitely the middle and obviously the end. It was like a kiss he’d never given a woman in his life, it was almost unbearably sexy, even going so far as being moving.

Whatever had made him kiss her like that, he could not imagine, but her reaction to it was strange.

Receiving a kiss like that would have been the perfect excuse for any woman to wheedle nearer to him but Sibyl seemed to want to hide it, hide her reaction to the kiss and hide the fact that it had happened at all. She set it aside as if it was unimportant, even though her behaviour said it was anything but.

She was more intent on taking care of him and apologising for answering his damn mobile than talking about the kiss, the episode or the rather upsetting fact that he’d apparently physically abused her (another advantage she did not seem willing to turn).

Colin was concerned he’d had a snatch of his life he didn’t remember but with his strange dreams and all that had happened between he and Sibyl, Colin was more interested in her reaction to the entire episode and especially that remarkable kiss.

And she had lied to him once, he knew, about her nightmare. She was a spectacularly bad liar another part of her puzzle that made the option of her being a scheming mercenary less feasible.

However, what she had told him was enough for him to realise that something was connecting them and it was much more than magnificent sex. He wasn’t ready to believe it was something else, a legend or myth brought to life in the form of a tall, curvaceous, annoyingly adorable American woman with leonine hair, but it was something.

Something was definitely not right about Sibyl Godwin. She was not what he expected her to be and, that morning, he was going to find out what, exactly, she was.

When he walked into his office the morning after the incident in the chalet he expected to see Robert Fitzwilliam, the investigator who he had sent on Sibyl’s trail. He’d set the meeting as his first order of business of the morning.

Colin did not expect to see Marian Byrne in his outer office, nor to see his secretary glaring at the older woman with barely concealed distrust.

“Mr. Morgan,” his secretary, Mandy, popped up the minute he entered the room and said, unnecessarily and unusually forcefully, “Mr. Fitzwilliam is here to see you.”

“Thank you Mandy, I can see that,” Colin replied but his eyes were on Mrs. Byrne who seemed quite content and smiled happily at him.

Before he could greet the older woman, Mandy continued, “And this woman, who, by the way, was here yesterday and said she was Neil’s mother but now says she’s not, is Marian Byrne and she says she needs to speak with you urgently. I explained you have a very busy morning but she said she would wait,” Mandy announced, her words coming out in an angry rush.

Colin raised his brows at the Neil comment, wondering why on earth Marian Byrne would pretend to be one of his employee’s mother.

She was still smiling and shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, giving nothing away.

He’d decided he’d find out soon enough.

“I know Mrs. Byrne. I’ll see her after I speak with Mr. Fitzwilliam.” He turned his attention to the investigator and motioned to the door to his office, inviting, “Robert.” Then Colin walked passed Marian Byrne and nodded politely at her in greeting, saying, “Mrs. Byrne.”

She calmly returned the gesture.

Colin had just settled into his desk chair when the door opened and Mandy brought in a tray of coffee, her usual morning task. She set it on his desk, handed Colin his cup and gave one to Robert then left without a word.

Colin ignored her.

“Shall we start?” Colin invited, ready to hear some answers.

Robert took a sip and put his cup on Colin’s desk.

“Pretty basic stuff, you’ll be pleased to know,” he began, his words slightly surprised Colin and Colin watched him pull a thick file out of a briefcase.

“Sibyl Jezebel Godwin,” Robert started and something shifted inside Colin as Robert read out her full name, her real name, truly she was a Godwin. Some part of him never believed that, for some reason. To have it read to him so calmly felt like a blow.

Christ, did Beatrice Godwin’s descendant walk into Lacybourne three weeks ago?

Dear Christ, had she done so only to have him shout at her?

“Born to Albert Godwin, an Englishman.” Robert lifted his eyes to Colin and the other man’s were benign. They showed no signs that anything he was about to say would be life changing even though, with the two pieces of information he’d given Colin, they already were.

Sibyl’s father was English. She could be descended from Beatrice’s family.

Robert continued. “Her father was born in Wells. He teaches Medieval History and took his first post in Arizona where he met his wife, Marguerite. She was born Marguerite Wilhemina Den in Sedona, Arizona. Bit of a wild one, is Marguerite, an aging hippy, studies witchcraft, been arrested seven times, mostly during demonstrations for civil rights, women’s rights, anti-war, stuff like that. Nothing serious.”

Colin sat in stunned silence as the pieces of Sibyl’s puzzle flew together. Everything about her fit, the damned granola she always seemed to be eating, her lecture about fuel economy, her pets’ names. Not to mentions Sibyl’s bizarre muttered comments of “Oh my goddess” were because her mother had brought her up Wiccan.